Persona
by Gohan Roxas
Summary: [AU] "On a rainy day, at the stroke of midnight, the TV turns itself on...and inside you'll see your true love..." That was the legend in the town of Yugure...but the legend hides a dark truth. Based of the anime of Persona 4.
1. I Am Thou

_**I LIVE!**_

_**Finally, I have a workable idea for a fanfic, and it comes from watching an anime of a video game of all things!**_

_**As you might be able to tell from the title of this story, this is based off the storyline of Persona 4, though a few things have been/will be changed. Also: this is based primarily off the anime rather than the games, so no details from Golden or the game.**_

_**A few notes: there will occasionally be a change in POV and tense. These come from when Riku is inside the Velvet Room, where the story will be in 1**__**st**__** person, present tense. Otherwise it'll all be 3**__**rd**__** person, past tense.**_

_**Anyway, enjoy!**_

* * *

_This place…what is it?_

_ The room is long, almost as if it belongs in a limousine, and surrounded in blue ambient light. No, not light. It always looks like that, my mind tells me._

_ This fabric…I remember the name. It's…_

_ "Welcome," a deep voice interrupts my thoughts, "to the Velvet Room."_

_ My head rises to take in two men garbed in black, and a woman in light blue, a colour that matched her hair. All of their eyes are almost a deep a blue as the room itself. The man at the head of the table has long dark hair, and scars across his face, ones that remind me of old samurai movies. The second man has messy brown hair, though it seems well-kept, and his muscles almost seem to bulge under his skin-tight shirt._

_ The scarred man looks at me and smiles kindly. "I can see you're a little confused as to what this place is. Well, allow me to explain."_

_ He moves his hand above the table and, to my shock, cards begin to appear in flashes of blue light. Tarot cards, I correct myself._

_ "This place exists in a realm between," the man explains. "Between dream and reality, between mind and matter. It's a place only those bound by a contract may enter."_

_ "A contract that only a chosen few can make," the second man adds, looking at the woman, who nods._

_ She opens the large tome on her lap, and the cards that had appeared on the table are suddenly sucked into the book, filling the once empty pages. "Are you one of those few? Are you a person chosen to make a contract? A person with hidden abilities?"_

_ "Perhaps so," the first man interjects. "Now, why not introduce yourself? What's your name?"_

_ My mouth feels dry, my eyelids heavy, but I manage to croak it out._

_ "Riku. Riku Tsubasa."_

_ A light similar to the ones that appeared when the scarred man summoned the Tarot cards appears on the table, and from it comes a piece of paper. It has a lot of writing on it, most of it in a language I can't understand, but there are two words that I can decipher._

_ My name. My signature. This…is a contract?_

_ The eyes of all three people widen, but it soon fades into smiles._

_ "We were right. You are chosen," the woman chuckles._

_ "We will meet again," the scarred man tells me, his head bowing. "Until then, my friend, we must part."_

_ My head suddenly feels heavy, and I can feel drowsiness growing until my head drops, and I feel like I'm falling._

_ Falling into a darkness I may never recover from._

* * *

Riku Tsubasa's head snapped up as he heard the ding of the train's announcements. He looked around. That's right. He was on a train, bound for his new home town, after the deaths of his parents.

"So what was that room?" he muttered to himself. Eventually he shrugged it off as a dream.

The ding came again, and the train driver's name came on in pleasant tones. "_Good afternoon, travellers. Our next and final stop will be Yūgure Station. I repeat: Our final stop will be Yūgure Station. Thank you for travelling with us, and have a nice day."_

Riku stood up and collected his two bags from the compartment above him. One was his luggage – clothes, a few gifts for the relatives he was going to live with – and the second was essentially his schoolbag. It was the one he'd used at his old school in Hareyakana, and he'd use it here too.

The train came to a halt, and Riku stepped out onto the platform, which was bare save for himself and a cleaner in terms of people. He walked outside to see exactly what Yūgure looked like for himself.

It seemed like an ordinary, simple mountain town to him, though he had nothing to compare it to. Hareyakana had been a bustling city, and Yūgure was almost microscopic in comparison.

He looked around for his ride – his relatives – but saw nothing. "Is no-one here?" he asked himself.

"Hey!" a male voice interrupted him. Slightly shocked, he turned to see a rather scruffy-looking man in a dark shirt and pants, wearing a slightly-undone light red tie. He had unkempt, spiky dark red hair, and slight dark stubble on his chin. On his arm was a girl who seemed to be about Riku's age, though maybe a little younger. She wore a white top and a dark skirt, while thin-rimmed glasses framed her face.

"Sorry we're late," the man smiled. "I had to pick my niece up from class." He gave a familial affectionate look to the girl at his side. "I say niece, but she's actually my cousin's daughter, who I've taken care of since she…well, you'd know. Sorry."

Riku just nodded, keeping his straight face.

"You really don't remember me, do you? Well, it has been a while since I saw you. Nearly twelve years now… Anyway, my name's Lea Flynn. This is Amanda Yaminoha."

"Hi," the girl said simply, smiling cutely.

"We should get going. It's nearly dinner time." Lea smiled again and led the way to his car. "I bet Yūgure's a big difference from back home in Hareyakana."

"Yeah," Riku replied. "It's a lot smaller for one thing. More peaceful."

"Nothing really happens here," Amanda chimed in. "The worst crime we've ever had was a kid stealing candy from the mall nearby."

"And I threw the book at that punk," Lea chuckled.

"You're a cop?" Riku asked, looking away from a storefront poster of a bikini-clad Brittany.

"Yep, Yūgure Police Department, first class Detective."

"Uncle Lea's the best on the force. Not that that's saying much," Amanda giggled softly.

"Now, now, Amanda, be nice about the guys." Lea's voice was strained.

* * *

Lea's house was fairly large for the area, big enough for everyone to have their own room, and his detective's salary was enough for them to have three TVs in the house: one in the lounge, one in Lea's room, and a third in what would become Riku's room.

Dinner was simple – a takeaway pack of sushi, for which Lea apologised. "I'm not that good a cook, so we'll have to make do."

The meal was interrupted, though, when Lea got a call on his cellphone. "Ugh, it's work. Sorry, kids, gotta take this." He stood up with a groaning sigh and answered. "Flynn. I…I see. Alright, I'm on my way." He put his phone away. "Sorry, Riku, but I have to go to work. Something's…happened. You two should be OK on your own, right?"

"Sure!" Amanda beamed.

"Alright then." Lea smiled a sad smile. "I'll see you guys later." He grabbed a suit jacket from nearby and slipped out.

After dinner, Riku and Amanda had a brief conversation before they went to bed, with Riku unpacking quietly until the late hours. When he finally finished, it was almost midnight. With a heavy sigh, he sat on the somewhat hard sofa that faced his TV. "Stuck here, huh?" he wondered quietly.

The raindrops threatened to send him to sleep, but they were interrupted by a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder.

Midnight hit, and something Riku had not expected happened.

The TV turned itself on, showing a fuzzy-looking sepia screen. He could vaguely see a woman's figure on the screen, but he didn't think anything of it.

Then a voice began to mutter in his head as he stared at the screen.

_**I am thou…**_

Riku clutched his head as the voice hit him. Somehow, it physically hurt when this voice spoke to him. What was happening?

_**I am thou…and thou art I!**_

He let out a quiet cry of pain, then felt himself collapse onto the sofa.

Riku saw the darkness of sleep…but shuddering constantly at the edge of the black were scratchy words, and a voice continued to mutter like a madman.

_**I am thou, and thou art I…**_

* * *

_**In case you haven't clued, the three people in the Velvet Room were Eraqus, Aqua and Terra. Eraqus is essentially a less-creepy Igor, and Aqua is basically Margaret. Terra I threw in because I felt like it.**_

_**A note or two:**_

_**1. "Yūgure" means "Twilight" in Japanese, and "Hareyakana" is "Radiant". Basically, this means that Riku's moved from a version of Radiant Garden to a version of Twilight Town. I just translated them so I could just use the one name.**_

_**2. Amanda is not my creation. She belongs to the mun of **__**askthetravelingfangirl **__**on Tumblr, but she uses the name "Darkblade" for her last name. I translated that into Japanese, then condensed it a little to create the name "Yaminoha".**_

_**Anyway, next chapter, we'll meet some of Riku's new friends!**_


	2. Awaken

_**Well, I'm back with another chapter for "Persona", and I've been bolstered by being able to watch the whole damn series of the Persona 4 Animation, including the True Ending episode. Now, there are a few hidden (and some not-so-hidden) appearances in this chapter. Wonder if you can pick who they are?**_

* * *

Riku walked alone to school, because, as it turned out, Amanda was not required to go. "Uncle Lea requested an exemption for me so I could stay home," she'd explained. Briefly, he remembered a request she'd made before he left to buy some non-essential things from the nearby gas station, stating, "If you're gonna live here, you have to earn your keep!"

Riku was roused from his thoughts by a crashing noise. He blinked and saw that the source was a brown-haired boy on a bicycle, though the bike now lay on the ground, and the boy was bouncing up and down, his hands appearing to be somewhere around his groin.

"Owowowow…" he groaned. "That was a critical hit to the goonies…Owww…"

Riku paused only for a moment to watch the boy's strange dance-like movements, before sighing and walking on. "I'll just leave him be," he mumbled to himself.

* * *

"Alright, dumbasses, shut yer traps and pay attention! This's our new transfer student, who came 'ere from the big city, Hareyakana. Prob'ly a fugitive, for'm to move out here to the sticks!"

Riku wrote his name diligently on the blackboard of the classroom, ignoring the rants of the one-eyed teacher, who wore a full black suit, and his grey-streaked brown hair in a short ponytail. When he'd written his name up, he spun to look at the class, vaguely noticing one or two girls who wore smitten expressions.

"Alright, git to introducing yerself," the teacher growled at him. He'd pronounced 'introducing' as 'innerducing', but let's keep things respectful to the language, shall we?

The silver-haired boy nodded. "My name's Riku Tsu…"

"HEY!" the teacher suddenly shouted, poking his finger at him. "You were just leerin' at that there girl in the corner, weren't ya? You thinkin' that jus' 'cause you're from some big city you can do whatever the hell you want? That's it! You just made it to my 'shit list'!"

"Sir?" a girl's voice interrupted in dry tones. Both people at the front of the class looked at the girl, who had one arm up. She had short black hair, and had a similar-coloured bandanna on her forehead. Over her school uniform she wore a navy blue jacket that was undone, while the cuffs had a dark green colouration. "There's a seat over by me. Can the new guy sit here?"

The teacher blinked with his one eye, then muttered a "Yeah" before reeling back at Riku. "Sit yer ass into your seat!"

Not hesitating for a moment, Riku slipped into the seat beside the nice girl, who waited until he was settled in until she leaned over. "We call him 'Xig-Brainless'," she whispered informatively, "though sometimes we just shorten it to 'Brainless'. He's terrible."

"Shut yer pieholes, you two!" the teacher now known as Xig-Brainless snapped at them. "Alright, home room's about to start, so shuddup and listen!"

* * *

"Right, class is over for the day. Git outta 'ere, already!" Clearly, Xig-Brainless wasn't the type of teacher who cared much about formalities.

"Hey, did you hear about that reporter who they found strung up in the powerlines?" a male student asked of his friend.

"Yeah, I heard it was Miss Kosako. Y'know, the one who was sleeping around with that politician?"

"Oh, I heard about that! You think he did it?"

"Nah, he's just a delivery driver now. He's all washed up."

"Maybe he's got nothing left to lose."

"Dude, you've been watching too many late-night thrillers."

Riku stood up from his seat before collecting his bag and moving to the door. Then a now-familiar voice stopped him.

"Hey, new guy!"

Riku turned to see the girl who he now sat next to, as well as another girl, who had long auburn hair and wore a pink cardigan over her uniform. "If you're heading home, why don't you walk with us?" She took on a sly expression. "You could be out knight in a shining tuxedo."

The other girl giggled. "Yuffie, it's shining _armour_, not a shining tuxedo."

Riku smiled. "Sure."

"I'm so sorry about Yuffie," the girl continued. "She's a little…forward."

"Hey!" The girl known as Yuffie jumped ahead slightly. "Don't go apologising for my behaviour, Kairi, it makes me look bad!"

"Oh. Sorry." Kairi giggled, not looking very sorry at all.

Yuffie growled slightly, but put on a smile. "Oh, sorry, introductions. My name's Yuffie, and this is my best friend, Kairi."

Kairi nodded, still smiling cutely. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Hey, Yuffie!" a boy's voice chimed in a singsong manner. It was the same boy who'd apparently suffered a 'critical hit to the goonies' on his way to school, the one Riku had left be. In his hands he was holding a DVD case. "Thanks for letting me borrow it, it was so awesome!"

Yuffie opened the case and gasped, her eyes and mouth gaping open. "You asshole!" she shouted angrily, kicking the guy in the stomach so hard he flew out of the room and landed on his face in the hallway. "You cracked the disc, you moron!"

"I'm sorry," the boy apologised, his voice muffled by the floor. "I'll make it up to you."

Yuffie huffed and walked out of the classroom. "C'mon, Kairi."

The auburn-haired girl bowed an apology to the boy, whose butt seemed to be twitching in the air. Riku briefly looked at him before walking away. "I'll just leave him be…again."

"So…" Yuffie began the conversation once they'd left the main building of the school, "you moved here because your parents died in a plane crash?" When Riku nodded, she sighed, a mixture of sadness and disappointment evident there. "That blows. Not just your parents dying, but I was kinda hoping it was something scandalous."

As they walked out the front gate, Riku saw a boy with messy black hair and eyes so brown they were almost red watching them, his eyes practically glued to Kairi's back, but he dismissed it as nothing.

Once they reached the gas station, which was luckily only a few minutes walk away from the Flynn household, Riku made his excuses to Yuffie and Kairi, who simply smiled and waved goodbye to him, though Kairi yelled behind her that she hoped they'd meet again.

"Friends of yours?" a voice asked him.

"Hm?" The silver-haired boy turned to see a grey-haired boy around his age, wearing the uniform of the gas station's owner company, smiling slightly. "I think so," he said in reply to the worker's question. "It's a little early to tell."

"So that should mean you've got a lot of free time, huh? Maybe you should take a job here, we're a little short-staffed."

"No thanks, I'll be fine."

"Come on, at least give it some thought." The boy held out a hand for Riku to shake, which he did. "Anyway, better get back to work." He walked off, leaving Riku confused. Shaking off the feeling, he walked into the store and grabbed the things Amanda had requested.

The pain didn't hit him until a minute or so after he'd left the gas station. It was a sharp, stabbing pain, like someone was trying to lobotomise him through the top of his skull, and it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Soon it was out of his mind, like it had never happened.

* * *

"I'm back," Riku announced calmly as he stepped inside, remembering quickly to remove his shoes at the door.

"Hey, you," Amanda smiled at him, looking over from the dinner table, which already had some food on it.

"Where's Lea?" he asked then, putting the shopping bag from the gas station in the kitchen.

"He's at work," she replied, sounding a little upset. "That woman they found in the powerlines."

"Oh, I heard about that at school. She was a reporter?"

Amanda nodded. "Yep. Her name was Ryuki Kosako. They say she was having an affair with a local politician, and that it got him fired. I dunno what to think, though." She put her chopsticks down. "I'm gonna wash up then go get some shut-eye. Eat dinner before it gets cold, 'kay?" She smiled and went upstairs.

* * *

Riku was up in his room until midnight yet again that night, though he didn't know why his mind wouldn't shut down. Just as his eyes started to drift, he heard the voice from the night before yet again, though it was more distant this time – less intense.

_**I am thou, and thou art I…**_

Another voice, deeper, more ethereal-sounding, slipped above the muttering, and it seemed to come from some sort of figure, that of a man in a long white robe. _**You seek truth?**_

_Am I…dreaming?_ Riku wondered briefly.

_**Then seek out the truth, and do not let it slip through your fingers…**_ The voice, and the figure it seemed to belong to, faded, and Riku fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

_**It should be pretty obvious that "Xig-Brainless" is Xigbar, and that he's the replacement for Mr Morooka, a.k.a. "King Moron". And yes, Yuffie and Kairi are essentially Chie and Yukiko. But can you guess who bicycle kid was?**_

_**More importantly, perhaps, who do you think the guy at the gas station was? Or who he COULD be? **_

_**And with that little riddle, I'll take a bow, ask for follows, favourites and reviews, and bid you farewell.**_


End file.
